Comments about ‘Utah Legislature: Bills seek to make talking on a cell phone while driving a crime for teens’

I am surprised, I thought it was already illegal to talk on the cell and drive ... maybe not in Utah !

Why just minors?

I will echo Silva's question above. Why just minors? The people who have nearly run me down because they were engrossed in their cell phone conversations were not teenagers but supposedly mature adults.

I'd go for a bill which outlawed anyone talking on a cell phone while driving. I'm tired of my life being endangered by folks who think they're driving just fine but are actually impaired.

If a call is so important that it demands your attention before you arrive at your destination, please just pull off the road and give it your full attention. Resume driving when you can give that task priority. Thanks.

Yes, indeed, why just minors? I have a seventy-something mother who does it all the time and it scares the bejeebers out of me! I'm actually less concerned about my teen doing it than my mother. Young people are good at multi-tasking; seniors aren't. No disrespect to seniors, just a fact.

Its a stupid idea

It should be illegal for anyone to speak or text on their cell phones while driving, and it should be strongly enforced!

It's only minors because bills to ban all cell-phone use while driving have failed before. The political will's not there yet, so they pass what they can.

so when an adult kills someone while talking and driving at the same time, its ok.........

Why just minors? It should be illegal for every driver. Many other states have such a law.

I agree that talking on a cell phone while driving is a big distraction. I agree that texting while driving is an invitation for problems. I agree that younger drivers are not as experienced as older drivers.

However, to say that only 18+ year old people can talk on a cell phone and drive at the same time is a little silly. Why does it not apply to all ages? What about senior citizens? How is their frontal cortex working?

If we are trying to remove distractions, what about kids in the backs seat, the radio, and eating?

I have narrowly escaped 12 accidents in the last year. Every instance was with an adult cell phone user, handset plastered to their ear. When cell phone drivers have a phone on their head, they don't bother to look when they turn or change lanes. It isn't just the teens!

Ban the freakin' things from all drivers!

I thought Utah was a leader in driving safety. This legislative attack on teen drivers makes no sense. Since the driving public will not honor such a restriction anyway, IT WOULD BE MUCH MORE EFFECTIVE TO REQUIRE THE INSTALLATION OF A CELL PHONE SCRAMBLER IN THE ROOF OF EVERY CAR REGISTERED IN UTAH. This should help solve the problem of inattentive drivers.
This issue reminds me of my first experience riding ambulance from Idaho to Logan Utah. A car loaded with six people was obstructing the narrow two lane road, and ignored the siren, flashing lights and all.
I wrote down their lic. number, called the Sheriff the next morning and requested that the driver be apprehended. He called me back and asked, Are your Certain, Yes. But sir he is our Stake Patriarch. No one should be above the law.

This bill is total BS and age discrimination. It is like telling those over the age of 65 they have to go in ever year and take the drving test. Utah has really started to go too far on their laws. Lets stop making new ones and start enforcing the laws that we already have on the books.

Don't you already get ticketed if you cause an accident, regardless of the cause?

Maybe we should just check the development of the frontal cortex of everyone who desires to drive. Sure, it'd make the lines a bit longer at the DL Division, but wouldn't it make us all safer?

Maybe we could attach spikes to the ears of everyone with a Driver License so that the phone can't be held to their ear. If people want to drive then that's just part of the cost of doing so.

I am the writer of this story. Thank you for commenting. Because of space constraints in the physical newspaper, I was unable to go into much detail about why the legislation bans cell phones for teens and not adults.

Yesterday at the Legislature, I ran into Phil Riesen on an elevator. Riesen, is sponsoring the house version of the bill. Last year, Riesen proposed an all-out cell phone ban for all drivers, and the bill died. (However, legislators did pass a ban on texting last year.) This year, Riesen decided to only include teens in the bill to increase the chances of its passage. (The conservative majority in the Legislature tends to resist controls to adult behavior – for instance, a motorcyclist in Utah doesn’t have to wear a helmet.)

Additionally, as my story noted, teens’ ability to multitask is worse than adults’.